Will We Soon See A Gay Character On ‘The Walking Dead’?

World, Ross Marquand. Ross Marquand, world. Ross was recently cast in an unspecified role which will debut in the second half of the current season of The Walking Dead. Based upon comic continuity, fans are now speculating that he may be playing the show's first gay character.

According to E! Online (link below), a whole host of things that have been said by the show's actors and creative team have led fans to jump to the conclusion that Marquand will be playing Aaron on the hit AMC series.

Details on his role are being kept under wraps—par for the course when it comes to The Walking Dead—but rumors and statements from comic series co-creator and show executive producer Robert Kirkman indicate Marquand could be playing Aaron, a gay character who also appears in the Image comic books.

He would be the show's first major gay character.

Speculation regarding Daryl Dixon's (Norman Reedus) sexuality exploded on the Internet after comments Kirkman made in the letters page of his comic book. They were furthered by Reedus who discussed playing the character as "prison gay" and by the show's executive producer and showrunner Scott Gimple who indicated a gay character would be coming to the series.

"We play Daryl Dixon as being somewhat asexual on the show. He's a very introverted character and I think that's some of his appeal," Kirkman said on Talking Dead. "I do have to clear something up, though: in the letter column of the comic book that I do, I mentioned that there was a possibility early on about making Daryl Dixon's character gay…It caused quite a hubbub online and I just wanted to clarify that the possibility is there and that I would have been fine with it, the network would have been fine with it, but we ultimately didn't do that. I can make it official: Daryl Dixon is straight."

I'm not entirely sure what it really means to be "prison gay," nor am I sure what a gay character adds to the series, but it's always nice to have representation, even in the zombie apocalypse.

Via E! Online